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Print culture embodies all forms of printed text and other printed forms of visual communication. One prominent scholar of print culture in Europe is Elizabeth Eisenstein, who contrasted the print culture of Europe in the centuries after the advent of the Western printing-press to European scribal culture. The invention of woodblock printing in China almost a thousand years prior and then the consequent Chinese invention of moveable type in 1040 had very different consequences for the formation of print culture in Asia. The development of printing, like the development of writing itself, had profound effects on human societies and knowledge. "Print culture" refers to the cultural products of the printing transformation.
In terms of image-based communication, a similar transformation came in Europe from the fifteenth century on with the introduction of the old master print and, slightly later, popular prints, both of which were actually much quicker in reaching the mass of the population than printed text.
Print culture is the conglomeration of effects on human society that is created by making printed forms of communication. Print culture encompasses many stages as it has evolved in response to technological advances. Print culture can first be studied from the period of time involving the gradual movement from oration to script as it is the basis for print culture. As the printing became commonplace, script became insufficient and printed documents were mass production. The era of physical print has had a lasting effect on human culture, but with the advent of digital text, some scholars believe the printed word may become obsolete.
The electronic media, including the World Wide Web, can be seen as an outgrowth of print culture.
Ong suggests scribal culture is defined by an alphabet. McKenzie says that the key to scribal culture is non-verbal communication, which can be accomplished in more ways than using an alphabet. These two views give rise to the importance of print culture. In scribal culture, procuring documents was a difficult task, and documentation would then be limited to the rich only. Ideas are difficult to spread amongst large groups of people over large distances of land, not allowing for effective dissemination of knowledge.
Scribal culture also deals with large levels of inconsistency. In the process of copying documents, many times the meaning became changed, and the words different. Reliance on the written text of the time was never exceedingly strong. Over time, a greater need for reliable, quickly reproduced, and a relatively inexpensive means of distributing written text arose. Scribal culture, transforming into print culture, was only replicated in manners of written text.
Jack Goody, however, documents that the introduction of written language was transformative for finances, religion, law, and governance. Written language facilitated higher levels of organization, coherence and consistency of messages, extending reach of control, ownership and belief, creating rule of law, critical comparison of statements, among other effects.Goody, J. (1986). The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society. Cambridge University Press. Extensive scribal cultures with corresponding social consequences emerged in the ancient Middle East,Vanstiphout, H. L. J. (1995). On the old Babylonian Eduba curriculum. In J. W. Drijvers & A. A. MacDonald (Eds.), Centres of learning: Learning and location in pre-modern Europe and the Near East (pp. 3–16). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. the Ancient Hebrew world, Classic Greece and Rome,Havelock, E. (1982). The literate revolution in Greece and its cultural consequences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. India,Mookerji, K. R. (1969). Ancient Indian education: Brahmanical and Buddhist. London: Macmillan. China,Lee, T. H. C. (2000). Education in traditional China: A history (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Vol. 13). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Mesoamerica,Berdan, F. (2005). The Aztecs of central Mexico: An imperial society. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. and the Islamic world.Makdisi, G. (1981). The rise of colleges: Institutions of learning in Islam and the West. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press. The complexity of cultural change in the ancient Middle East is documented in the Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture.Radner, K. & Robson, E. (Eds.). (2011). T he Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Paper and woodblock printing were introduced into Europe in the 15th century, and the first printed began appearing in Europe. Chinese movable type was spread to Korea during the Goryeo dynasty. Around 1230, Koreans invented a metal type movable printing which was described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as "extremely similar to Gutenberg's".Briggs, Asa and Burke, Peter (2002) A Social History of the Media: from Gutenberg to the Internet, Polity, Cambridge, pp.15-23, 61-73. East metal movable type was spread to Europe between the late 14th century and early 15th century.Thomas Franklin Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward, The Ronald Press, NY 2nd ed. 1955, pp. 176–178 The invention of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press (c. 1450) greatly reduced the amount of labor required to produce a book leading to an increase in the number of books produced. Early printers tried to keep their printed copies of a text as faithful as possible to the original manuscript. Even so, the earliest publications were still often different from the original, for a short time, in some ways still remaining more accurate than printed books.
Hand-copied illustrations were replaced by first , later that could be duplicated precisely, revolutionizing technical literature.Eisenstein 155
Because of the transformative consequences of the printing press, printing houses such as that of Christophe Moretus in Antwerp (now the Plantin-Moretus Museum) became for a time the center of print culture as authors considered themselves as belonging to a Republic of Letters. To build confidence in the knowledge arising from their presses, publishers fostered communities of trust.Johns, A. (1998). The nature of the book: Print and knowledge in the making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Additionally, during the 18th century, the production of printed newspapers in the colonies greatly increased. In 1775, more copies of newspapers were issued in Worcester, Massachusetts than were printed in all of New England in 1754, showing that the existence of the conflict developed a need for print culture. This onslaught of printed text was brought about by the anonymous writings of men such as Benjamin Franklin, who was noted for his many contributions to the newspapers, including the Pennsylvania Gazette. This increase was primarily due to the easing of the government's tight control of the press, and without the existence of a relatively free press, the American Revolution may have never taken place. The production of so many newspapers can mostly be attributed to the fact that newspapers had a huge demand; printing presses were writing the newspapers to complain about the policies of the British government, and how the British government was taking advantage of the colonists.
In 1775, Thomas Paine wrote the pamphlet Common Sense, a pamphlet that introduced many ideas of freedom to the Colonial citizens. Allegedly, half a million copies were produced during the pre-revolution era. This number of pamphlets produced is significant as there were only a few million freed men in the colonies. Common Sense was not the only manuscript that influenced people and the tide of the revolution. Among the most influential were James Otis' "Rights of the British Colonies" and John Dickinson's 1767-68 Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Both of these played a key role in persuading the people and igniting the revolution.
Before the Revolution, the British placed multiple acts upon the colonies, such as the stamp act. Many newspaper companies worried that the British would punish them for printing papers without a British seal, so they were forced to temporarily discontinue their work or simply change the title of their paper. However, some patriotic publishers, particularly those in Boston, continued their papers without any alteration of their title.
The Declaration of Independence is a very important written document that was drafted by the Committee of Five and other Founding Fathers representing the original Thirteen Colonies, as a form of print culture that would declare their independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and explained the justifications for doing so. While it was explicitly documented on July 4, 1776, it was not recognized by Great Britain until September 3, 1783, by the Treaty of Paris.
It was the job of the Constitutional Convention to reform the document, but they soon discovered that an entirely new text was needed in its place. The result was the United States Constitution. In the form of written word, the new document was used to grant more power to the central government, by expanding into branches. After it was ratified by all of the states in the union, the Constitution served as a redefinition of the modern government.
Thomas Jefferson was noted as saying, "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." This serves as an excellent example of how newspapers were highly regarded by the colonial people. In fact, much like other forms of 18th century print culture, newspapers played a very important role in the government following the Revolutionary War. Not only were they one of the few methods in the 18th century to voice the opinion of the people, they also allowed for the ideas to be disseminated to a wide audience, a primary goal of printed text. A famous example of the newspaper being used as a medium to convey ideas were The Federalist Papers. These were first published in New York City newspapers in 1788 and pushed for people to accept the idea of the United States Constitution by enumerating 85 different articles that justified its presence, adding to a series of texts designed to reinforce each other, and ultimately serving as a redefinition of the 18th century.
Copyright laws help to protect these standards. However, a few regions do exist in the world where literary piracy has become a standard commercial practice. In such regions, the preceding expectations are not the norm.Johns 61
Currently, there are still approximately 2.3 billion books still sold each year worldwide. However, this number is steadily decreasing due to the ever-growing popularity of the Internet and other forms of digital media.
The way that information is transferred has also changed with this new age of digital text and the shift towards electronic media. Gunkel states that information now takes the form of immaterial bits of digital data that are circulated at the speed of light. Consequently, what the printed book states about the exciting new culture and economy of bits is abraded by the fact that this information has been delivered in the slow and outdated form of physical paper.
In the article, "The First Amendment, Print Culture, and the Electronic Environment", the author notes that expectations will change as information becomes less tied to specific locations, and as machines become networked and linked to other machines. This means that in the future certain goods will not be associated with their origins.
The article "The First Amendment, Print Culture, and the Electronic Environment" also mentions how the new electronic age will make print better. Placing information into electronic form not only liberates the information from its pages but removes the need for specialized spaces to hold particular kinds of information. People have become increasingly accustomed to acquiring information from our homes that used to be only accessible from an office or library. Once computers are all networked, all information should, at least in theory, be accessible from all places. Print itself contained a set of invisible and inherent censors, which electronic media is helping to remove from the creation of text. Points of control that are present in print space are no longer present as distribution channels multiply, as copying becomes faster and cheaper, as more information is produced, as economic incentives for working with information increase, and as barriers and boundaries that inhibited working with information are crossed.
The advances of technology in print culture can be separated into three shifts:
The written word has made history recordable and accurate. The printing press, some may argue, is not a part of print culture, but had a substantial impact upon the development of print culture through the times. The printing press brought uniform copies and efficiency in print. It allowed a person to make a living from writing. Most importantly, it spread print throughout society.
The advances made by technology in print also impact anyone using cell phones, laptops, and personal digital organizers. From novels being delivered via a cell phone, the ability to text message and send letters via e-mail clients, to having entire libraries stored on PDAs, print is being influenced by devices.
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